Absent
by AllThingsInsane
Summary: John Winchester. He wasn't my father. He was my biological father. But he was not father. He was not family, no matter what he said to my face. He could pretend all he wanted to, take me crap baseball games and buy me cheap food. He was not family and he never would be.
1. Chapter 1

John Winchester.

Dad?

_Was _he my dad?

I tried to look back on all the other fathers I had seen—fathers that actually _cared _about their sons and knew that the man that called himself my father, wasn't really. Not in the caring, figurative sense.

He was my biological father.

But that didn't make him my family.

My Mom was my family, and she was the one that actually gave a damn about me and wanted me to do well, and took the time to ask about my life: How I was, how my friends were, if I had a new girlfriend or not.

She was my family.

Not the mysterious, absent man that called himself that to my face. Sure, he took me to baseball games once a year and bought me really cheap burritos and soda, but he only did that out of an _obligation. _Out of a sense to prove himself to me, to prove that he could still be my old man after years of disconnect.

Well, solid effort.

I held no hard feelings toward him.

If he didn't want to be apart of my life, that was his option.

_Hit the road_, like my dear old grandfather always used to say to people who didn't want to be with him. I sometimes feel like saying that to my Dad, too.

For years, I survived without him.

I did.

I moved on with my life, when it became clear that he was no longer interested in my life. No more visits, not even a damn phone call on my birthday! I had stopped expecting him when I hit the age of seventeen.

Either he had dropped off the face of the earth, or he just didn't care anymore.

I was conflicted about which choice to go with.

My mother, she would never badmouth him to my face, but I could see the hurt in her eyes and in her voice when she talked about him in the brief times that his name was brought up in our home. She wanted him, she still held on to the belief that we could be one big happy family.

_Not likely_.

* * *

**This will be part of a three or four chapter story concerning Adam's thoughts and feelings about his Dad, and the times that he did spend with him. I have always been intrigued by the idea of John having a son that was, until a point, completely unaware of the supernatural and the dangers it presented. **


	2. Chapter 2

Did he just stop caring about me?

Did he just figured that I had a mom that loved me, and worked hard to support me, and he wasn't needed? Did he figure that I would be better off without an absent father?

I don't know.

All I know is that my fifteenth birthday would be the last time I would ever see John Winchester again. No warning, no phone call, or email. Not even a friggin' text message!

And it hurt.

It burned.

My own father just stopped caring about me. He stopped calling, he stopped everything as if he was never a part of my life, as if our visits had never happened! How was I supposed to know that our poker game, and my drive in the Impala would be our last outings together?

"Remember, this is only a special treat for today, son," my father said as he set the beer can down in front of me in the very back of some out-of-the-way pub that he had found by some stretch of a miracle.

I remember nodding, too psyched to even think clearly as I eagerly raised the small can to my lips and took my first ever sip of beer. It tasted like nothing I had ever tasted before, and it tasted great. I could and _can _see why people become so easily addicted to it, because that's what it is. Addicting.

"Thanks."

He nodded. "Anytime. You know that."

Except he was lying to me.

There would be no 'anytime' after he dropped me off with my Mom and I watched as his car slowly pulled out of our driveway, drove down the street and turned a corner. And that would be the last time I would see him or his Impala.

Before, he used to call. Once a week, just to check up on us and make sure we were both alright. After he left, the calls became a once every other week type of deal, and then they became once a month, and then they stopped.

I tried calling him. I did.

I only got his voicemail and a message telling me to call his son, Dean if there was an emergency. I didn't know what type of 'emergency' would get my father's attention, but I didn't bother anyway.

"Dad has just disappeared," I griped to my mother one night while she was getting ready to go to work. "Typical, huh?"

She tsked in disapproval of me badmouthing my parental figure, but I didn't care. He was no more a parent to me than fly to the moon.

"Your father loves you."

"And I'm not five," I retorted. "That's just a cheap way of saying that your Dad doesn't care about you anymore."

There was nothing to say.

And she knew that.

He was gone.

Out of our lives just as fast and surely as he had come into it.


	3. Chapter 3

I used to think of my father as a God of some kind. A mysterious, unseen force of good that couldn't see me because he was out saving the world from whatever evil was out there. It made sense to my five and six year old mind at a time when I was so young and so innocent, and not knowing the evils of the world and what it could do to a kid like me.

"Did Dad ever love me?"

The question had slipped from my lips without me even meaning to release it, as my Mom and I drove down the interstate to Wisconsin. My first year as a pre-med student was officially about to begin, and also my first year of independence and my first year living away from home.

"Yes, he did."

Controlled. Tight. Emotionless.

A carefully crafted facade.

Because my Mother knows. She knew how I felt about him. How hurt I had been from the lack of contact and the lack of caring that had become the story of my life the last three years.

"Then enlighten me. Tell me why he isn't here."

No answer.

Because there wasn no answer, no excuse as to why my father could not be there to see me off to college, and to at least act like he cared for five seconds of his life.


	4. Chapter 4

High school graduation.

Its supposed to be a pivotal, emotional time in someone's life. It was for me, too. But I was well aware of who was missing when my eyes scanned the crowd and saw my friends and their dads huddled together—the dads giving their son or daughter gifts for their accomplishment, and their children beaming with pride.

"Think Dad would be proud of me?"

I didn't know why I still thought of him. He was long out of my life by his own choice. I shouldn't be thinking of him, opening _that _can of worms on a day like my high school graduation.

"Oh, honey, you know he would be."

Except I didn't know that.

I had called his phone, inviting him to my graduation on the off chance he would actually show, but it had been futile and when my eyes had scanned the crowd of people and didn't see him, it was just another nail nailed into my heart.

"Yeah," I manage to choke out. "I'm sure he would be."

I didn't just graduate. I graduated with honors because I put in the effort, I put in all the extra study time that my friends didn't, and I sacrificed to make it happen. A shallow part of me wished that he could have been there, could have seen his son that he claimed to care about so much, accept his diploma with a smile on his face.

"I think if your father could have been here, he would be."

I nodded, but a very real part of me didn't care anymore. I didn't care to hear my Mom's excuses for him and why he was a no-show again. I didn't care to hear about her reassurances that meant little to me.

I was done.

I would love my father, and I would never stop hoping for a reunion, and a different father to come and take me to games like he used to, but I was done waiting for the phone call that would never come, and I was done expecting him and be gravely disappointed.

"You ready to go get something to eat?"

I looked over and smiled at my Mom. The one parent that hadn't abandoned me, who had always stuck by my side through thick and thin.

"Yeah, let's go."


End file.
